Poland and Luxembourg were the only EU countries expected to send top VIPs to Beijing's Olympics, as Russia and China use the games to forge closer ties.
Polish president Andrzej Duda and Luxembourg's grand duke Henri were the only top-level EU guests scheduled to be at Friday's (4 February) Winter Olympics opening ceremony, the Chinese EU embassy confirmed.
Spokespeople for Duda and Henri did not reply to EUobserver when asked why they were going.
Publicly, only a handful...
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Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.